Memory Lanes

The New Drive to Preserve China's Past

By

Ian Johnson

Updated March 14, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

BEIJING -- After decades of destruction of ancient landmarks and centuries-old homes, a new movement is taking hold in China: historic preservation.

Taicheng, in Guangdong province, is restoring old family dwellings and ancestral temples. In the north, the city of Harbin is working to save Russian-influenced stone and wood buildings from the early 20th century, repointing brickwork and reaffixing frieze-work facades. In response to citizen pressure, the eastern city of Jinan has preserved 18th-century waterfront pavilions and one-story buildings, previously scheduled to be torn down and rebuilt in a pseudo-ancient style.

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A trishaw barely fits in Qianshi Hutong, the city's narrowest hutong.

The newfound interest in historic preservation is an about-face for a country that for the past three decades has made economic development its absolute priority. The southern city of Guangzhou has implemented public hearings on urban reconstruction. In the past, whole neighborhoods were razed for commercial development, with homeowners forced to take sometimes substandard apartments on the edge of town. Now, redevelopment plans can be passed only if 70% of the residents of an affected area agree.

In many cases, these preservation efforts are focused on attracting tourists to historic areas. Harbin's renovated district, for instance, will include a shopping area with galleries, caf&eacute;s and boutiques, while Jinan's restored buildings are now home to new restaurants. The restorations also reflect more than 20 years of lobbying -- particularly by academics and architects -- to preserve what is left of China's architectural treasures, many of which were lost to the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and '70s, or to rapid building and modernization in more recent years.

"The government is much more aware of protection than in the past," says Shu Yi, a Beijing-based writer and activist who has been at the forefront of the historic-preservation movement for the past two decades.

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A hutong from above

By far the biggest preservation battle is in Beijing. As China's capital for much of the past 900 years, it is filled with ancient buildings. But as one of China's most prosperous cities and with a burgeoning population of more than 15 million, it also faces intense commercial pressures to tear down its historic center. That has made the city a national focal point for historic preservation.

When China's century of war ended with the Communist Party's takeover in 1949, Beijing was still a largely medieval city of about 65 square kilometers, surrounded by an enormous city wall. It had 7,000 hutongs, the distinctive alleys laid out by the Mongol conquerors in the 12th century. Hutongs are narrow streets that run between the traditional walled courtyard homes of Beijing. Once made of dirt, they are now paved, but still crammed with hawkers on trishaws -- pedicabs -- as well as bicyclists and taxis trying to squeeze in between.

About 75% of this old city has now vanished. Starting in the 1950s, the government rejected pleas by scholars to build new administrative offices outside the old city in another part of town. Instead, they took over palaces in the center of town and knocked down old buildings to build the office blocks required by a modern bureaucratic state. In the 1960s, the city wall went, again despite protests by locals. But it was only with China's economic takeoff beginning in the 1980s that wholesale leveling of neighborhoods began, leading to the loss of some architectural treasures, including 500 homes from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that were destroyed to make way for the city's Financial Street.

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The Russian-built St. Sofia Church in central Harbin

But recently, a surprising force for preservation has emerged in Beijing: the 2008 Olympics. Though many critics assumed that the building of new facilities and roads for the Games would lead to more destruction and clearing of old neighborhoods, in fact, the opposite has taken place. Anticipating an influx of tourism, the city has spent part of the Olympics money provided by the central government to renovate historic areas. Since winning the Olympic bid, officials say, the city and central governments have spent $57 million on improving Beijing. Some of that has gone to helping the old city.

A key to the improvements has been public transportation. One of the most controversial projects in Beijing was Peace Street, a six-lane road built in the 1990s. It bulldozed through the old town to accommodate the new auto-friendly city that Beijing was trying to become, destroying numerous historic homes in the process. Now, for the first time in decades, the city is building new subway lines, with much of the track going under the old city. Beijing will have six lines by the time the Olympics open in August, up from two a few years ago. That has reduced pressure for more highways in the city center.

In preparation for the Olympics, the city is also cleaning and restoring the hutongs. It has been burying telephone wires, fixing potholes and tearing down sheds that have often blocked the crowded alleys. Due to China's rapid population increase, the lanes now house about four times as many people as when the country's civil war ended in 1949.

Lushanmen Hutong, for example, used to be crowded with sheds of coal briquettes; its asphalt street was potholed after years of neglect. Starting late last year, the city tore up the hutong to install electric heating in each of its roughly 200 homes. The coal sheds were emptied and torn down, making the alley easier for pedestrians and bicycles to travel on (it's still a bit too narrow for cars). The street was covered with attractive paving stones and the courtyard walls were painted gray, the standard color in the hutongs.

"The hutongs were old, but they were also chaotic," says Wu Ke, head of General Planning Department of Beijing 2008 Environmental Construction Headquarters. "People built what they pleased."

Upgrading basic services also helps protect the old town. Officials in the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau say 30,000 homes have switched from coal to gas heating in the past two years, with 100,000 more slated to make the switch in the next two. City officials say they will not tear down homes that have been upgraded, so in theory, 130,000 homes in the old city will be protected.

Officials say they are responding in part to years of lobbying by people like Mr. Shu. His father, the novelist Lao She, chronicled life in the hutongs, and since the 1980s Mr. Shu has fought to keep them from vanishing.

The city is also rebuilding some of the courtyard homes that define the city. These homes usually have four buildings arranged around a courtyard, with a tree in the middle. Some of those being rebuilt are for the rich, but many are aimed at lower-income residents. Workers are still using many of the techniques from the past, including building with fitted joints that do not require nails.

Mr. Shu and other activists have now launched a campaign to protect individual buildings outside the officially designated historic-preservation zones. To date, they have successfully lobbied the city to designate 500 such buildings. The city has also agreed to a plan to put plaques on buildings where famous people in Chinese history lived -- one now notes the home of the late 20th-century author Lu Xun, for example.

Although most of the old city has disappeared, Mr. Shu tries to put it in perspective. He says Beijing is coming to resemble a European city, with a small medieval core and the rest largely rebuilt. In Europe, those old towns are usually centered around a cathedral. In Beijing, it is the imperial city and a few lakes north of it.

"Something I learned from meeting people in other countries is that every city that has protected areas has, in the past, had great losses," Mr. Shu says. "It's only by having these losses that we are motivated to fight to protect what's left."

Trip Planner

The best way to explore Beijing's old hutongs is on foot. Walking tours are easy to organize on your own. Some good routes can be found on the Web; they're easy to print out and bring along for an afternoon in the hutongs.

Tours by trishaw -- bicycle-powered rickshaws -- are available from several companies, including Tour Beijing and RickShaw. Trishaws give a good overview but some visitors feel rushed, and there's little chance of straying off the beaten track -- half the fun of hutong exploration (www.beijinghighlights.com/privatetours/hutongtours.htm).

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